Shades of Grey
by Patchverse-SheCat
Summary: A mistake from a team leader leads to Remy and Rogue getting held captive, and all havok breaks loose when Remy's lovesick follower tries to break them out. Ummm...people die.
1. Thorns of Roses

A young lady in her early twenties was waiting by the curb of Xavier's Institute of Higher Learning at dawn. Her figure was tall and lithe, as if someone had tried to stuff slim and muscular, skinny and strong, into one body. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, with only a stray forelock sweeping beneath her eye, which was bearing a scar similar to the two on her cheek. The eyes themselves were green and gold, and currently were scanning the barren driveway and road.  
  
It had been a long time since she had seen anyone familiar. Strobe was off to Europe as a leader of another traveling team of X-Men, while Paige had gone into politics. Kurt and Ororo had left for Africa, to aid a raging epidemic of HIV. Julie had run off with a Chinese man and currently was residing in Peking, Shadowcat to Europe. Remy and Rogue had left on a motorbike three years ago, leaving neither explanation nor farewell.  
  
The road remained desolate, as it had for the past three years. SheCat didn't know why she always expected different. She just always went out at dawn, waited for a while, then returned inside.  
  
A tear fell from her eye, the kind that don't redden the cheeks or spread along the eyeline. It dropped and hit the pavement at her sandaled feet, splattering like a raindrop. She wiped its brother away, then turned to enter the mansion, feet and heart heavy.  
  
A small sound caught her attention, a muted rattle that transformed into a dull roar. It was the sound of a motorbike.  
  
By midday SheCat and Remy were chatting over lunch out back by the pool. Hers was a more than reasonable amount of cheese slathered over a hamburger, his was gumbo. His ability to eat that spicy Cajun meal at any time of day would never cease amazing her, especially considering that he, by all rights, should have burnt his tongue off a while ago from the amount of Cayenne pepper dumped into it. Despite the fact that she would have drained the pool had she tasted it, he ate it resolutely, without any drink of any kind to help wash down the burning taste. He loved it.  
  
"Ya miss me much, chere?" He spoke between spoonfuls. His voice snapped her out of the daydream she was having about his lips.  
  
"Yeah. It's been downright dull here, and you took the last available motorbike.' Her dialect was still that of a young person.  
  
"Sorry 'bout dat." He took another spoonful, making certain to waft the smell beneath her nose first. She reflexively took another drink of 7- Up.  
  
"You know, you never said goodbye. You just left." Remy was startled by her change in tone, from slightly whimsical to accusing.  
  
He defended himself. "As I told you I would."  
  
"Doesn't change the fact that you still never said goodbye."  
  
They ate lunch in silence for a few minutes. After finishing demolishing her burger, she stood and started to head in.  
  
"Should we take a ride?" She turned. "On de motorbike?".  
  
She turned to face him. He was playing her, that she knew. He was purposefully letting himself stay seated, giving her the subconscious sense or superiority. It was an old trick. "Why?"  
  
"We can talk. I get de feelin' you got t'ings on your mind." The old trick worked.  
  
It was autumn fireworks among the arboreal life down the old motorbike path. Vivid reds and golds would have floated to the ground, had it not showered a mite earlier. Now soggy leaves cluttered the trail at odd intervals as the motorbike skidded to a stop.  
  
"Why are we stopping here?" SheCat stood in wonder at the wet beauty that was aspen while talking.  
  
"T'ought I'd jus' tell you how beautiful you look nowadays." Remy leaned on the motorbike, watching SheCat stare at the panoramic view. His hair was plastered to his forehead, having been caught in a delightedly perfect drizzle. Mist was just starting to rise, up to her waist now, a little over the seat of the bike.  
  
His response was too unnatural, too suddenly complimentary to be genuine. "What are you saying?"  
  
Remy patted the seat of the bike. She obliged to sit next to where he was leaning, looking him straight in the eye, the advantage of the bike giving her an inch or so above him.  
  
"You leading me on, LeBeau?"  
  
"Dieu, non. I'm jus' givin' you a compliment." A stray raindrop landed above his eyebrow, trickling over it and into his red on black eyes.  
  
"You want something, don't you?"  
  
"I can't kiss Rogue."  
  
"So? Am I a consolation prize or something?" Her eyes flared. Another stray raindrop struck her cheek.  
  
"You fall in love or somet'in'? Wit' someone new?"  
  
"No." She was honest. She was wondering if he was.  
  
"You don't love me anymore?" His eyebrows arched. A raindrop slid down the angles of his jaw.  
  
SheCat stood, walked off onto the edge of the path, back turned. 'It's not that."  
  
Remy got up and stood behind. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Den what is it?"  
  
She whirled on him, twisted out of his grasp. "I don't want to be second choice! Just cause you and Rogue have troubles doesn't mean I'm always available because I'm desperate, or I'm scared, or I'm..." These words she spat out, as if they were poison to her tongue. "Or I'm just a kid who doesn't understand what love really is! I'm twenty-two years old! I don't need your, your hand-me-down love and your excuses for why you up and left! I'm not just a girl anymore!" She cut herself off at the look on his face, a mixture of stunned and ashamed.  
  
"Okay." Remy turned away and walked to the motorbike, trademark trenchcoat dragging a little in the muddy path.  
  
"Wait!" She ran to him as he mounted the bike. He gave her a hurt look, but she didn't register that as she grabbed his face and kissed him, and as he returned the favor.  
  
Their lips were locked, heads twisted to the right to allow room for their noses, eyes closed.  
  
She would always be a child in his eyes. She knew that, just like she knew she would always rank second place in his heart. She was an outlet for his physical romancing, Rogue for his mental. A confusing paradox that left all three feeling like they had the short end of the stick.  
  
Remy had almost forgotten what a kiss was like, what a true kiss felt like when passion was involved. He had kissed out of business, to achieve ends or to avoid danger. Very rarely had he kissed truly out of romancing, with Bella Donna back when they were in love, once with Rogue that had landed him in a three week coma while she was busy trying to sort out his memories from one another and wondering why she had the sudden urge to do something, non-stop, 24-7. Now he felt SheCat too, inexperienced but pure, and that was the best kind of kiss. The first one.  
  
She hoped that the rain that was now falling steadily around them and soaking their clothes would obscure her tears. She hated herself for her weakness, for the irreversibility of the situation, for trying for so hard to believe he loved her more than Rogue. She hated it when thinking ruined an experience, especially one so sweet as this first kiss of hers.  
  
After a while, they broke apart and just held each other.  
  
"I'm so sorry." Her voice was surprisingly clear for someone who was crying.  
  
"Me too, chere. Me too." He held her a second longer, then released her. Rain spattered against their faces, mist swirled around their legs as they mounted the bike. It had been a while since he had kissed anyone, what with Rogue around.  
  
In an hour the path was wiped clear by the forces of nature, and no one would know two motorbikers had ever been there at all. 


	2. The Broken Wings

It was seventeen o'clock military time as Alexis Moore entered the base. It was small, concrete, with barbed wire around for at least one hundred yards in every direction. She walked past the sign on the fence labeled "Do Not Trespass" and the one on the gate stating "Danger! Military Testing!".  
It was out in the middle of Nevada, surrounded by a yellow dust for miles. What remained of the dry lake was a dust bowl, with a harsh fringe of mountains out to the West. No one came, no one left, there was no road for leagues. Lexi, as she was called, snapped the door's rusted lock in her bare hands and pushed it open.  
"Ms. Joplen, the area appears vacated. It seems ideal for our situation." Lexi talked into her watch. Her cold eyes roved the cement base as she moved room to room. She had the eyes of a mercenary.  
"Any equipment?" The voice from the watch was filled with static.  
"Old computers, some desks. Nothing worthwhile. We can move our equipment in tomorrow."  
"Thank you, Assassin. We shall follow the procedure. Over and out."  
The voice ended. Lexi, Assassin, turned back and walked out to her hummer, parked out by the barbed wire. A rattlesnake had gone under her cooling tank for shade. Ignoring it, she stepped in, revved the motor and set out to off-roading.  
  
Katy-Jo Joplen was a gorgeous woman about 20. She was a typical blond- and-blue beauty, tall, elegant. Currently she was leafing through a scrapbook of photos from Xavier's Institute of Higher Learning. There were pictures of her, of her best friend SheCat, of her two other friends Paige and Julie, of her teachers and her room-mates. Those had been the days when she had been Strobe.  
Her electrical bursts had come into being when she was ten years old during a Sentinel War. Mutants were hunted and prosecuted by huge, warlike machines, and anyone who stood in the way brutally murdered. After blowing a hole through her barn wall, she decided it was for her parents' safety, from Sentinels and from her, that she should leave, and took to the road. At her tender age, she was susceptible, and quickly was left money-less and hungry. Two years older, SheCat had found her, tended to her, fed her, became her confidant for the year before Kurt found them.  
Strobe had given up the name Katy-Jo Joplen, if only to protect her family. Recently she had hired a private investigator to find them. They had died two years ago, leaving their name and legacy to their only heir.  
Katy-Jo stretched out on the couch, letting the scrapbook fall from her hands onto the carpet. Lexi had called in. All was according to plan.  
Aqua walked in. He, too, had been treated favorably by time. He still could make any girl swoon. As he crossed the room he gave Strobe a quick kiss on the cheek.  
"Are we according to plan?" He checked the list of e-mails on the computer.  
"All according to plan, everything is just perfect. We're going to round up Team K again."  
  
The mirror had fingerprints across its entire surface. It was obvious that children had been there. From the lip gloss left by the tap and the array of "Seventeen" magazines in the toilet reading rack, it was probably teenage girls.  
SheCat, having finished showering, was tying her hair up in its trademark ponytail. She wore a white towel, which contrasted incredibly with her dark torrent of glossy waves. She had become an expert at ponytails, able to do them one-handed without looking. She had even taught some of the students in her dorm to do this. She was the guardian in the teenage girl dorm nowadays.  
Strange, how much she looked like Yuriko. The face was the same, the only exception being coloration and the three scars. Had she blue contacts and had she dyed her hair black, she would have looked almost identical to her. She figured that she probably would have fit into any of Yuriko's old clothes.  
She had known Yuriko was her mother ever since she had first revealed her face. It accounted for many things in her life. The abandonment, the nightmares. It seemed, when a child was born, part of the parent's persona came too.  
She wasn't Yuriko. She wasn't a blood-thirsty killer. She was a survivor, yes, but did not relish in death or in pain. She was SheCat, not Yuriko.  
A voice and the sound of crashing woke her from her reminiscing. Pressing her ear to the wall, she listened.  
  
Remy was not fully awake until the china vase crashed against the wall an inch from his head. He had been half-asleep, crashed out on the bed when Rogue came in. He had stumbled up as she had advanced, menacingly, and cornered him against a wall.  
"You kissed her, didn't you!?!?" Another crash as Rogue threw a plate. "You think just 'cause you can't kiss me you have every right to kiss her!" Remy ducked as the alarm clock dented the wall above his head.  
"I was just-" He was cut off as the picture frame slammed into the wall next to his neck.  
"You think Ah'm not good enough for you, don't you! You need two gals, don't you!?!?" She flung another picture frame. It made a crack as the glass split.  
"Quite a few don't you's in dere-" He dodged a shoe that cut off his "chere". Rogue grabbed her other shoes, tried to yank it off, failed and started to untie it. He used this as a moment to speak.  
"What was so wrong dat I did? She's just a girl!"  
The shoe came free and struck his shoulder.  
"Ah'll tell you what's wrong! You think that everyone's just a girl! She may have been a girl when you met, and Ah agree she was, but she's a woman now and you know it!" A few students had gathered near the shut door to listen.  
"She don't know what it means-!" Another crash, another picture frame.  
"Ah bet you think Ah'm just a gal too! Just 'cause you got a few years over me, it don't mean you are that much smarter!"  
"But you're older den she-"  
"Ah don't care! You're the cheater here, LeBeau, so Ah'd hold mah tongue if Ah were you!"  
"It's not like I haven't already broken her heart!" There was a silence that perplexed the students outside for a few minutes. Then a familiar Southern accent broke the silence.  
"She don't have a heart. It was replaced with a machine five years ago." With that final cold remark, the room was silent.  
  
The students twittered among themselves, but only a few knew about the machine Rogue referred to. Only those who had been there five years, and these were younger students, most not even teens. One taller girl called the others to her. They all started talking at once.  
"What's the machine?"  
"What was she talking about?"  
"Who was she talking about?"  
The tall girl shushed them, then began to tell the story in an eager, yet confidential, tone.  
"You know that lady SheCat? The one in Genevieve's dorm?"  
"You mean the one who used to be an X-Man?"  
"X-Woman."  
"Whatever. The one who just trains all day?"  
"Yeah, her. Well, anyway, five years ago she went on a mission and got stabbed through the heart. She lived, obviously, but they had to replace her heart with a little machine Forge made. Supposedly, when she heard about it she got really mad, said they should have let her die rather than take out her heart. She got over it, but Rogue held it over her for a while. She and Rogue never really got along."  
"That's it?"  
"Wow. Stabbed through the heart."  
"Si! Rogue no le gusta SheCat!"  
"No duh, but why?"  
"Porque Gambit!"  
"Oh."  
The tall girl shushed them yet again.  
"I heard some girl in the tenth grade talking about it. She said that SheCat really likes Gambit and that Rogue's really jealous." A few of the kids snickered. Could adults really have little immature crushes? The whole idea of SheCat leaving Gambit little love notes and writing about him in her diary was hilarity in itself.  
The kids giggled about it a few minutes, then a little redhead cried out.  
"Dinnertime! It's spaghetti and meatballs!" The redhead tore down the hallway. The other kids followed, trusting her keen senses to tell them precisely what Piotr had cooked up for them.  
  
SheCat slid to the floor. She was numb. Her nerveless hand slid down to the ground to steady her.  
She knew he saw her as a child, why did they have to hammer it into her head at every opportunity? Why did Rogue take that cheap shot? SheCat had had no say; they gave her the surgery while she was still unconscious. It was not in any part her fault. Plus, the heart was metaphorical. The heart was a pump. It was the soul that counted, residing within the deepest fibers of the brain which no one could live without.  
So why did she feel like that wasn't so true as she made it out to be?  
  
"Oh mah God, did ah really say that? Did Ah really say that?" Rogue ceased all movement. She had given a sucker blow, she had acted of vengeance. It didn't help the fact that it was cruel.  
Remy cowered in the corner another few seconds, then rose. Rogue stood there, feeling guilty and ashamed. The words were out, she heard the little children outside. She couldn't turn back time. She couldn't take back her words.  
"Did Ah really say that?"  
Remy walked over to her, took her gloved hand, led her to the bed. Both took a seat.  
"Ah really said that. Ah was just so mad. Ah just was so jealous. Am Ah still your only lover?" He held her as close as he could without skin contact.  
"Always, chere. Always my only lover."  
"And what 'bout your only loved one?"  
"Dat too."  
  
Strobe and Aqua also sat together on their bed, over two hundred miles away. On the bedside table, Aqua popped the cork from a bottle of Merlot and poured it into two glasses. Strobe sprawled lazily on the bed in her black nightdress.  
"Did Assassin get hold of all of them?" Strobe was anxious to make sure her plan got underway.  
"Almost. She has to get to Kurt, Remy and Rogue. She'll try tomorrow." Aqua passed Katy-Jo one of the glasses, still cool beneath his fingers. "Why didn't you want to bring SheCat?"  
"I don't want to put her in danger. I don't want her putting herself in danger." Strobe sipped delicately.  
"You're putting me in danger." Aqua drank from his.  
"You volunteered."  
"Wouldn't she?"  
"She wouldn't do it because she believes in the dream like we do. She'd do it to stay close to Remy."  
They sat in silence for a few seconds. Aqua finished his wine and poured himself more.  
"She's my soul sister. She protected me for a year on the roads. I think I should protect her now." Strobe finished her wine.  
"From what?"  
"From herself. She doesn't treasure her own life. She'd die in a heartbeat if she thought it would benefit us." There was a pause. Aqua and Katy-Jo stared into each other's eyes. She had the overwhelming desire to grab his pants and rip them off his body.  
"I don't think I'd want her to die. I really wouldn't. I'll only use her if it's the only way." Strobe placed her empty glass on the table.  
"How will you know it's the only way?"  
"I just will." The candlelight played stars across her deep blue eyes. They leaned a little closer.  
"I wouldn't want you to die either, Mark."  
"Stop talking like we're all gonna die." His eyes of blue met her own.  
"Sometimes I just get so worried. We rarely get time alone like this. We're always shunted, here or there, putting our lives on the line. What if you died and I never told you I loved you?" She broke their gaze and looked away.  
"You could always tell me now." Their gaze met again. She paused a second, bit her lip. If she admitted to herself she loved him, then it would hurt even more if he did die. Their eyes met yet again.  
"I love you."  
"I love you too."  
He grabbed her face and they kissed. And that was only the beginning of a very pleasurable night for both of them. 


	3. Prelude to the Storm

Lexi Moore was growing impatient with Gambit and Rogue. It was apparent both their comm-links were off, and neither had replied to her growing number of messages. Kurt had been easy enough to reach, a tad of static and he was set. It infuriated Lexi that neither Shadowcat, nor Julie, nor would Paige take time off to aid a friend in need. She figured she was jumping to conclusions, and she would let Strobe decide the course of action. Lexi was a messenger; Strobe was a leader.  
Finally it appeared Gambit's comm-link had received a message and was returning it. Lexi adjusted her headset and the frequency to reply.  
A static-filled voice on the other end began to speak. "Hello? Hello? Did someone call? Bonjour? Hola? Anyone dere?"  
"Gambit, this is Assassin." Lexi checked her screen: no new developments for the branch of S.H.I.E.L.D.  
"Sassy! What brings you t'call?" The Cajun accent made understanding even more difficult. Lexi attempted to alter the frequency again.  
"Must I tell you again? Call me Assassin. If you must indulge in petty nicknames, call me Lexi."  
"Right, Sassy. Now why did ya call?" On the other end Gambit poked his head out his room door to make sure no one was eavesdropping.  
"You're needed again. Our last attempt at S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't completely wipe them out. There is a base off in Nevada. It seems much like Sublime's U-Men of old, but more advanced. They've been performing a Weapon X type project to create super-soldiers. They are almost like the Sentinel program; they are mutant-robot hybrids built to kill other mutants."  
"I t'ought we were on vacation." Gambit groaned. At last he had returned to a familiar place, met up with some lost friends, one in particular, and managed to get a good night's sleep without the fear of incoming S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.  
"We need you to come. Rogue too, if she can. Do you need the stats, or should we brief you here?" Lexi altered the frequency yet again. This time he came in loud and clear. Lexi smiled for the first time of the day. Finally, something was working.  
"Brief me now. Hang on." Remy covered the comm-link with his hand.  
"Who're you talkin' to?" Rogue sat perched at the end of the bed.  
"Sassy. She wants us back again." Remy closed the door. Rogue let her profane tongue speak its mind.  
"Can't we ever get a decent break? Why, do they want us back to whoop some more Sentinels for them?" Rogue was plainly upset. Bad enough they had had to leave without telling anyone three years ago, now they had to repeat the process. "Can't that slut Strobe just fry them?"  
Remy uncovered the comm-link. Making certain to accent the word "Sassy", he spoke.  
"Okay, we're in, Sassy. Tell us all."  
Though Lexi tried to hide her irritation at his annoying pet-name for her, she couldn't hide a certain hard edge in her voice. "The project is out in the Sierra Mountains. So far we've found that they are modifying mutants with 'useful' powers by transforming them into cyborgs. These cyborgs have only the partial genetic structure of the original mutants. However, they contain a computer microchip that controls them. The only known 'hub' to these microchips is in the aforementioned base. If we destroy the base, the cyborgs become utterly useless."  
"What's so bad 'bout dese cyborgs?"  
"They're set to hunt out mutants, much like Sentinels. They find the mutants that S.H.I.E.L.D. finds useful, then kill the rest. In the end, they all die, but the 'useful' ones just end up dying and getting turned into mechanical mercenaries instead. All we need is a way in and out. It should be a simple mission for a thief like you. We need you by tomorrow evening; that's our first strike and your chance to get in."  
Lexi thought the exasperated sigh that followed sounded like "Where?", so she gave him the location.  
"We'll be dere, we'll be dere. Long as we get a break afterwards."  
"You have our word. You can take a five-month Caribbean cruise if you want. Long as you get this done. Regular security protocols." Lexi checked off another two members of the team roster. Things were going better than she'd expected.  
"We're gonna want one heckuva cruise." Remy put down his comm-link. He wanted a Caribbean cruise where they all served gumbo, and buffalo wings for Rogue. He just wanted to rest all day and sunbathe and swim in a pool and sleep in. The last thing he wanted was to risk getting killed by a series of mutated robots.  
Life wasn't easy. Remy and Rogue left the room empty. The crackling voice of Assassin was not heard on the comm-link as she softly gasped to herself.  
"Oh God. This is worse than we thought."  
  
Strobe and Aqua met Kurt in a remote region of Kenya. Cleverly piloting the Nightingale, a sister-jet to the Blackbird, they landed without so much as disturbing the herd of impalas two hundred meters away. A few of the cautious females raised their heads, and a nearby meerkat bolted, but for the most part, the animals felt unperturbed by this strange metal invader. Strobe redirected the flow of electricity to the batteries to dampen their sound. Aqua lowered the ramp.  
Kurt stood there in his X-Men uniform. It hung a tad loosely on him, as if he'd lost weight since they'd last seen him. His face was gaunt, but his eyes still shone with the same flamboyant perkiness they always had. His tail was wrapped around the hilt of his cutlass and he beamed as they came down the ramp. Ororo, standing next to him, was dressed in a beautiful African garb, red and green and gold, and had her hair done up with an animal bone pin. Strobe felt obligated to converse with her.  
"Beautiful attire, Ms. Munroe." Strobe had the sudden urge to bow to this woman before her. Truly the phrase goddess could be denoted to someone so regal.  
"Thank you, Strobe. I came here to see Kurt off. You did tell me that this would be a simple mission, with little danger. If not, I would feel my presence necessary." Ororo's voice compelled obedience.  
"Of course, Ms. Munroe. I understand your concern, but we should be fine. It will probably take less than a week to get everything sorted out. It's S.H.I.E.L.D. again. The last time was a synch." Strobe was using her refined dialect she had picked up throughout the years. Normally it took constant attention, but around Storm it came naturally.  
"Don't become over-confident. You never know what S.H.I.E.L.D. has in store." Strobe decided to take this advice whole-heartedly.  
"Mein Fraulein, farewell for now. I'll return." Kurt kissed Ororo on the cheek. He and Aqua bounded up the ramp into the jets. Strobe followed, but before ascending turned to Ororo and bowed. Ororo didn't see; her face was to the cockpit from which Kurt waved at her.  
"Take care of yourself, Kurt!" Ororo gave them a tailwind to get started. They left, and Storm waited until they were completely out of sight before turning and walking away. She was nervous beneath her calm exterior. Strobe had not yet made enough mistakes to realize the penalties. She was rash, inexperienced, not the kind of person Storm would want as a leader. She had not yet seen death, not had anyone torn away from her, not had to cry herself to sleep. What price would she pay if she wasn't ready, or acted prematurely? If so, who would ultimately be held responsible, who would have to take the fall? Who would be the one to lose everything?  
As the sun began to set, Ororo prayed that Katy-Jo's good luck did not run thin.  
  
"Why do you have to leave? You just got here three days ago. I don't understand." SheCat looked into Remy's satanic-colored eyes. She had caught him and Rogue trying to be secretive about taking off on the motorbike in the wee hours of dawn. The sun was yet to rise, and a few singular stars speckled the violet sky. Rogue was already on the motorbike; Remy stayed a second to come out on the driveway and hold SheCat's two hands in his. She was plainly afraid he wouldn't return for some time. "I'll miss you."  
"I'll be back soon. You can count on it." He dropped her hands and returned to the motorbike, blowing the SheCat a soft kiss as he mounted, leaving no explanation. Rogue didn't see as she checked her fuel gage. She revved the bike.  
"We'll see y'all around, SheCat. Don't have such a long face." With that final comment they accelerated down the driveway, rounded the curb and were lost from sight. SheCat was left alone again, parodying the morning vigil she had kept for three long years.  
"Lexi! Any new developments?" Aqua strode into the Nevada base, Kurt and Strobe following. Lexi wheeled around in her chair, holding her team roster list and printed out pages of the S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Strobe walked behind her and peered over her shoulder and Kurt took to a crouching position on the desk, in order to give himself a view. Aqua stood behind Strobe, tall enough to give himself a decent view as Lexi whirled again to accommodate for the change in position.  
"Katherine, Paige and Julie couldn't make it, or so they said. Gambit and Rogue called, and should be arriving by motorbike tomorrow at around three o' clock New York time. You'll need to pick them up about here, about that time." She indicated to a map, pointing at a small point in Colorado marked R&R.  
"Can't they just finish the drive?" Aqua pressed Lexi with questions. Lexi would know, she had been trained by Sage.  
"They don't have enough money or gas, and they don't trust the motorbike. They said it was 'misbehaving'. Supposedly it isn't driving smoothly and has trouble steering." Lexi replied coldly. Aqua always expected everything to be easy, hanging around Katy-Jo and ordering others around. Lexi was the one who did all the work, hacking, typing, code- breaking, organizing. She picked up a pile of photocopies and printed pages, passed them to Strobe.  
"It gets worse. The main control center we were going to strike at was a decoy. The real control center is located at the base of the cliff. The only way in-" Strobe cut her off.  
"Is directly through the entire base. Dear God, it'll be like trying to get through a minefield!" Strobe flipped through the print-outs again and cursed. "This is definitely not what we expected at all."  
"It increases the risk factor by a good deal. The infiltrators will not only be passing through the cyborg's hangar, but also the human armory and sleeping quarters. This means that they will not only have to deal with cyborgs, but with human soldiers as well, and armed ones at that, if they alert the armory." Lexi turned to Strobe. "You realize that whoever goes in there has little chance of getting out without getting into a firefight." Strobe swore again.  
"Are ve still going through with the plan?" Kurt peered at the papers in Katy-Jo's hands. The base itself was half a mile long, but the only way through involved a series of hallways, doors and security systems.  
"Yeah. We've got to do this. But we might as well warn Gambit and Rogue: it's gonna be dangerous and it's gonna be ugly."  
  
Exactly 21 hours, 17 minutes and 22 seconds later, as Lexi had timed, Gambit and Rogue's motorbike pulled up to the Nightingale, parked on a remote Colorado highway. The ramp was already down, and all four of the other team members were waiting at its base. Kurt was hanging upside down from one of the ramp's upper supports, Aqua was lazily resting on the bottom step, and Assassin and Strobe stood up waiting. Strobe, because she felt it necessary to maintain the leader image, Assassin because she thought it was very un-businesslike and also very uncomfortable to sit down in anything but a computer-desk chair.  
Rogue was driving, and Gambit had fallen asleep in the backseat, after having driven eleven straight hours. As they pulled up, she gave him a light smack on the chin, and he came to.  
"You're four minutes late." Lexi reported. "And approximately eighteen seconds."  
"Who asked you?" Rogue was quite cranky. She had driven for more than ten hours, and Lexi's annoying comments was not improving her mood at all. "Why do you care so much 'bout a measly little four minutes?"  
"And eighteen seconds. I was trained by a human-computer to pay attention to this kind of stuff." Kurt helped the still-drowsy Remy carry the motorbike into the jet. Rogue glared a second at Lexi, until Strobe came forward to check her comm-link "just in case". Lexi, nose in the air, picked her way up the ramp, making certain to shoot an icy glance at the Southern girl. Assassin and Rogue never had gotten along, especially when it came to matters of detail. Assassin was both accurate and precise, consistent and meticulous. Rogue simply got things done.  
The interior of the Nightingale had a different feel from the Blackbird. The inside was more home-like, seeing as the team mostly had to live in it. It had five rooms: the control room/cockpit, two bedrooms and the engine compartment. A small hallway connected the rooms. Rogue, exhausted, fell atop on of the beds in her and Remy's room. Gambit grabbed some salted turkey-jerky out of the control room, then crashed out beside her, still half-asleep. Lexi sneered at both of them.  
Strobe had the personality quirk of studying Gambit constantly, attempting, vainly, to understand her friend's infatuation with the man. She honestly had no idea. True, he was compassionate at times, but he could also be stand-offish. To Katy-Jo he always seemed that he had either not had enough rest, or way too much. And he was argumentative, sometimes boastful, and often cold to others. His only truly endearing fact was his looks, which Aqua beat out any day.  
Katy-Jo switched her view-point to that of an optimist. He was actually quite humorous, when she thought about it, very intelligent despite his goofy image, and even, she admitted, empathetic to others. He did have his good points, and in her years working with him, she often admired his determination, resourcefulness, and perkiness. His selflessness had, though almost costing him his life on multiple occasions, saved the mission and the team many times over. Plus, he had certain spunk to him. Though Strobe would never love the man, she liked his presence.  
Strobe had just gotten used to Rogue's fairly soft sleep murmuring when a much louder sound erupted from the room. Strobe grimaced; Remy snored.  
  
The moon had barely risen when the team finally set out on their mission. They had to operate by darkness. For Kurt, this wasn't a problem; his keen night eyes let him see with a fair amount of ease as he moved stealthily among the trees, almost invisible from the shadows, the only material not skin being his black pants. He had a physique that would make any girl drool, and it served him well as he swung in between braches. His years in the circus paid off, and he was close enough to the high security establishment to spot any potential ways in. Most of the higher, less guarded windows seemed potential candidates, hoping that the others could make a sufficient distraction. Unable to bamf because of the noise, he slipped quietly back into the dark.  
  
"Can you safely take both of them? Is there a safe landing spot for you?" Strobe pressed him with questions when he reported back. Because of Lexi's discovery, Strobe was taking extra precautions. Kurt affirmed the questions, and Katy-Jo continued. "Okay. Nightcrawler, you take Gambit and Rogue up into the trees and wait until the brawl starts. Aqua, start us off. I want the entire lower story inundated. Assassin, you pick off the first people who run, I'll deal with anything shooting at us from the upper stories. Nightcrawler, take them in as soon as the way is clear, wait until we're all shooting. Then, you've got the directions. Get to the control room and tear the place apart. Assassin and Aqua, when I give the word we storm the place and wreck it. Remember, we're not aiming to kill." There was a snort. Surprisingly, it was not from Rogue, but from Assassin. "Good luck, everyone. Let's go." Strobe began scaling a nearby tree, followed by Aqua. Kurt grabbed Remy and Rogue, and with a soft bamfing sound, disappeared.  
Lexi held her bow and quiver close, carefully laying her finger on each arrow in turn. Forty arrows in all. Hopefully forty would be enough. Carefully putting on her quiver, she removed an arrow and set it to the bowstring, and stalked quietly off in the direction of the others.  
  
Mr. Jansen was calmly checking the generators on his nightly watch when the attack was initiated. Checking the pressure, normal, and the water temperature, also normal, he figured he could stop and eat the ham and cheese sandwich his wife had made for him. He rested on the sole chair, overlooking the entire room, and unwrapped the sandwich in all its cholesterol glory. Looking at the sandwich, he took a monstrous bite of it, a little bit of mayonnaise collecting on the unshaven stubble of his chin. As he prepared to take another, he happened to look at the floor. A trickle of water was seeping over the ground. Instantly he leapt up and checked the generators. Nothing was leaking, but the floor now had a fine layer of water coating it, and that was steadily rising. Strangely, he noticed that the water seemed only to be rising, as if the only ripples were created by him.  
A low roar of rushing water caused him to look up at the door. The door was closed, but it was not for long. With a swift current, Mr. Jansen was carried away. The sandwich floated harmlessly on the surface.  
Outside, Aqua dropped his raised arms. Ducking behind a tree as angry and confused soldiers came out, he spoke softly to Katy-Jo.  
"I think that should be good." He was sweating. He had had trouble filling small swimming pools before; an entire lower story had been a tiring task.  
"Don't worry, Assassin and I will take it from here." Strobe poked her head out from behind the tree. Raising her hand, she focused on the patterns of electro-magnetism. A spark popped and crackled between her fingers, then a bright, flashing bolt of electricity bowled into the first soldier. Focusing again, another volley of blasts incapacitated the next wave of soldiers. But now she was under fire.  
Assassin, located behind another tree, had her bow loaded. Strobe had told her not to kill. Strobe was a good leader, but these people had threatened her race. They slaughtered her kind, used their bodies as hosts for more foul deeds. Assassin would never let that go unpunished.  
Concentrating on her arrow, she brought her mutation into play. The first thing her arrow touched, it would pass directly through. Stone, wood, fabric, skin, nothing, not even adamantium, would stand against the physical force, and then the arrow would have one less obstacle to worry about.  
She saw Strobe, under fire, throwing low-powered lightning around. Living up to her name, causing chaos among the inertia of the soldiers and knocking the rest over. She saw one grab a grenade, pull the pin, and cock it to throw. Lexi sighted her arrow. She aimed for his heart.  
  
Kurt bamfed Gambit and Rogue in. The window was an easy entrance, and it appeared that there was no one in the hall. They were all outside getting shocked, or shot at by a mercenary archer. No one had bothered to patrol these halls. Thankful for small favors, Kurt led Remy and Rogue further, mentally processing where they were and where they were going.  
Remy suddenly stopped Nightcrawler. Holding his shoulder, he led him back a few paces, then pulled what looked like a spray-can out of his trenchcoat. Kurt watched as he leaned over, sprayed the air, then blew on it. A glowing red laser system lay itself visible for the next five yards, in a checkerboard pattern. Kurt could barely make out a door at the end of the hall.  
Motioning silently to Kurt, Rogue wrapped her arms around him. He bamfed to the end of the hall, returned for Gambit, then watched as Rogue took Remy's spray can and hit the doorknob with it. Nothing. Cautiously, she opened it.  
What they saw next took their breath away.  
  
Strobe heard an explosion, and instinctively turned to see if Assassin was unharmed. She saw her, calmly aiming her bow, the same cold expression in her eyes that she saw in cats, waiting for the mouse to run. The bowstring twanged almost musically, and a sound Katy-Jo could never describe as anything but a death rattle followed. Strobe called out to Lexi.  
"Assassin, stop it! We were aiming not to kill! Stop it!" Strobe was almost pleading. She didn't like to kill; she did not want to see death. Lexi looked at her coldly, then returned to drawing the bowstring. It danced and hummed as she fired arrow after arrow. Body armor was nothing; helmets were as useful as air. Screams filled the air as the shafts rained down, each one accurate. One scream for one arrow. Strobe's faith in Lexi fell like ashes to the ground. "X-Men don't kill!"  
Assassin's voice was cold and calculated, every word building up a foundation of rage and hate until it threatened to spill over. "They discriminate against us. The innocents I will not harm, but those butchers will pay in blood for every mutant child abandoned, every little boy forced to work in the freak-show, every teenage girl selling her body for money that her parents wouldn't give to her because she was different. This is for the Sentinel Act, for Weapon X, for the Savage Land! This is for us, Strobe, this is for us!" Assassin fired her last arrow, heard one last shriek, then leapt noiselessly down from the tree.  
Strobe and Aqua stayed in their tree, watching her as she waited for anyone stupid enough to come close, crouched behind a tree. Spitting out words like hot poison, Aqua called to her.  
"You sound like Mystique, don't you know that?" Lexi didn't care.  
  
Ten cyborgs were in a hibernating state. The room itself was a broad hallway, each side lined by five metallic vigils. Rogue walked in first, followed by Kurt, then Remy, guarding the back, bo-staff extended. He closed the door quietly behind him. Kurt got a hold on the wall, then started crawling up to the ceiling for a better vantage.  
For a second they all stood in morbid fascination at the cyborgs. Most were half machine, half mutant. It seemed that the mutant half had been preserved well, and though dead, could easily be animated. They were humanoid, of different size, as if a person and a robot had been split down the middle then mix and matched. One stood out at them, half metallic, then half of what looked like a preteen boy. The hair had grown long from lack of treatment, and the skin had careful patterns of microchips imbedded just beneath the skin. The face was hidden mainly by the dark, but the metallic eye, the open red one, still haunted them.  
Remy grabbed Rogue's gloved hand, and they started to tiptoe to the other end, careful to make as little noise as possible. Rogue grabbed Gambit's trenchcoat pocket as it started to jangle and clack ever so faintly from poker chips. Gambit suddenly stopped her.  
"Wait.weren't dere ten cyborgs?" Remy motioned to the right side of the hall, filled with shadow. Rogue followed his gaze. The wall had only four cyborgs on it. The one they had been looking at was gone.  
"What the -!" Rogue felt something very solid slam into the base of her skull, sending her into a partial back-flip and cutting off her cry. A second later Kurt was knocked from the ceiling. Remy half-turned in confusion, then received a blow to his jaw that lay him flat.  
"Who's hittin' us?!?!" Rogue cried out again as she felt, but didn't see, something pummel her face. Covering her bleeding nose and lip with one of her hands, she lashed out. Her fist connected with something metal, and for the briefest moment she thought she saw a glimpse of the cyborg in front of her. "He's invisible!" Another blow, now to her stomach, doubled her over.  
I t'ink we figured dat out. Remy thought. As he tried to stand, the cyborg whirled around him, chipping at him, clockwise it seemed, but he rose and swung the bo-staff, baseball style, in the opposite direction. He felt it connect harder than expected. The staff spun out of his hands, and the cyborg appeared before them, on the ground, and let out an ear-piercing alarm.  
Kurt was fast enough on his feet to avoid the brunt of the first blow as another cyborg shot at him. He bamfed directly behind it, jackhammer kicked it to lay it flat. Rogue was dealing with her own problems, being shot at by one and in a fist fight with another. Gambit dove for his staff, and narrowly dodged a kick to his head. The ensuing chaos was enough to drown out Rogue's cursing, and the sound as the door swung open, revealing behind it at least thirty armed soldiers.  
"What's going on here?! I thought they were all outside!" The military sentry in the front row caught sight of Kurt as he bamfed to the front and simultaneously punched and kicked a soldier, then bamfed away to resume quarreling with the cyborgs. "Capture the intruders! Set cyborgs to stun! Keep them alive or the General will have our heads!"  
"Kurt! Get outta here!" Remy was surrounded by no less than three cyborgs, all attempting knock him silly with their frying-pan sized hands. Another was shooting at him, chipping some kind of toxic dart, and it was all he could do to avoid the initial attackers. Four darts stabbed into his neck. "Get Rogue and get outta here!"  
"Bamf, Kurt! Forget about me!" Rogue, too, had taken a dart, and was beginning to feel the effects as her every action slowed down. Kurt took a last look at them.  
I'll be back for you. I swear. With that final thought, he bamfed away. A dart aimed for him hit the wall behind.  
  
SheCat was asleep when one of the girls in her dorm woke her up with the wireless phone. Fluttering her eyes to clear them, she wondered who would call at one a.m.  
"Hello?"  
"SheCat, we need you now."  
"Who is this?"  
"This is Assassin. I work with Strobe. You're needed."  
"What?"  
"Rogue and Gambit have been captured." 


	4. Tempest Unbridled

General Clevery kicked Rogue in the side. She was on the cement floor, tranquilizer dart in her arm, glaring up at him but helpless. A shiner was forming over her eye and the blood from her nose and mouth slid down under her chin and dripped onto the ground. Her wrist was unnaturally bent, and her entire body lay sprawled. Gambit was a few yards away, so pumped full of darts he could barely breathe, much less attempt to help her. A soldier with a MP5 spoke.  
"We sure tore them to pieces. Look at that one; it's a miracle he's even alive." He added a profane comment, and the other soldiers laughed until Clevery gave them a perfected glare. When the General gave that look, he meant business.  
"You didn't do anything, soldier. The cyborgs did all the work, and a good job of it. Would someone give my congratulations to the technicians? The stun program worked perfectly." He looked at Rogue again. She narrowed her eyes again. He leaned down and began to speak quietly to her. "You hear me, little lady? Your trouble hasn't even started yet. I'm giving you to Bruce; he'll know how to deal with little runts like you." Rogue could not even muster the strength to spit in his eye. He rose, giving his order as he left the room. His men cleared the way. "I want the man filled with adrenaline. He needs to have an antidote to all those tranks. Then you can give them to Bruce; tell him to do whatever he wants to them. Move out!"  
Rogue saw one man come forward with his rifle raised. She saw his boots, combat boots, come down on the floor in front of her, one shoelace untied. She saw a dog-tag, Lewis, swinging around his muscular wrist. She tried to move.  
"I don't think so, little girl." The rifle butt came down and Rogue saw only darkness.  
  
"Liar." SheCat held the phone tensely as she was suddenly woken up, as if she'd stuck her finger in an electric socket. Static began to ring in her ears. Remy couldn't be captured; he was too good at everything. And why were they calling her? She could never do anything right anyway. Last time she had tried, before she had quit the X-Men team, she had nearly gotten killed, had been used as bait, she had lost her heart, and, she hated to admit, her mother. So why was this stranger calling her to help them out?  
"Believe me; I wouldn't lie of matters like this. Nightcrawler and I are coming your way in the Nightingale. Strobe and Aqua are in Nevada attacking the base Rogue and Gambit are currently held in. We're picking you up and taking you there. We should be there in less than an hour. Be ready."  
"Right." SheCat waited for Lexi to brief her, then hung up. Donning a red and yellow t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts, she was suddenly reminded of her old uniform. Touching her sword at its hilt, her chest gave a pang of involuntary fire. Dismissing it to the back of her mind, she took up her sword and a box of toothpicks, needles, nails and medical syringes. Pausing a second, she looked in her cabinet, pulled out a plumeria pendant of mica and abalone, long since fixed, and hung it around her neck. She was not Yuriko, but she may need her.  
It's my chance to do something right. I finally get a chance to do something right. Thoughts, surprisingly clear, ran through her mind. And this time, I will get it right, because Remy's life may be hanging in the balance.  
I'm coming, Remy. You wait up for me.  
  
Remy was in a dank little cell, curled up in the corner assessing his wounds and trying to block his ears to Rogue's yelps. They had beat him, too, and undoubtedly he had screamed a few times, but that pain was nothing against his frustration. He looked out the peep-hole in the door, saw the metal billy-club slam Rogue in the ribs, and turned away. His throat was too sore to scream for her anymore. The billy-club came down again, to the sound of metal striking bone. Rogue cried out again.  
After another five minutes or so of this inhumane torture, the guards grew tired of pulverizing the young woman and shoved her back in the cell. Before they closed the door, they cut her bonds on her wrists and ankles. She crawled haphazardly to Remy.  
"You okay?" His voice was hoarse from yelling. She curled up against him, feeling him wince slightly as she put pressure on his side. A rib was broken there.  
"They can torture us all they want, it won't make a difference. We still got each other." False hope for them. They didn't know how long the head guard Bruce would toy with them, but they wanted to make use of every second.  
"We'll die of starvation in here." Rogue couldn't believe he said that. Remy adjusted his position, carefully cradling his side. He had a cut over his eyebrow that had recently swollen. He was hurting more than she had thought. "Or dey'll kill us."  
"Don't say that. Ah'm usually the one who runs outta hope." Rogue snuggled up against his good side against the cold. They needed a blanket, or something warm, or at least some water.  
"Right den. We'll get out again. Or Strobe will find a way t' save us." More false hope. Remy took off his trenchcoat, gingerly, and used it to cover both of them. It wasn't warm, but it was something. Rogue gasped slightly as he sidled up next to her and her bruised ribs. Despite the healing factor she had imprinted from Logan, they had beat her hard, and she couldn't control when the healing factor activated. Most of her hurts were less than half healed. Remy wiped a trace of blood from beneath her nose. For a few seconds they sat, shivering, in silence.  
"D'ya think they'll remember us?" Rogue pushed her hair out of her eyes. Her shiner was clearly visible, even in the dim light from the hall.  
"Probably. Who'd forget us?" With Remy's trenchcoat off, Rogue had had a good view of his arms and neck. They were bruised and bloody, and four pockmarks dotted one side of his neck where the darts had gone in.  
"What'll they remember us as? Just some more mutants trying to save our world? Just two more long dead superheroes?" Rogue curled up closer to retain heat. For another few moments they waited in silence. Finally Remy answered her question.  
"I t'ink dey'll remember us as two superheroes who fell in love. You, de most beautiful, carin', lovely girl I ever met. You'll be just like you are now, mon chere, just as wonderful as you are now." After that somewhat sappy speech, he piped down, rubbing his sore throat.  
"Yeah, sure." Rogue knew he was paying her a slew of compliments, and coming from him, heartfelt ones, but she had wanted something more realistic. Yes, he would remember her that way, but the others might not. Sensing her mood, Gambit leaned over and kissed her cheek. She smiled. "What'll they remember you as?"  
"Well, dey'll remember me as I am. De most charmin', intelligent, handsome, strong and t'oughtful mutant who ever lived." He shot her his trademark grin, kind of lopsided but still attractive. She smirked.  
"Don't ya get so cocky, you shampoo-addicted runt." The guards outside never understood why the occupants of the cell were laughing, despite the prospect of impending death.  
  
"You're SheCat?" Lexi looked the Japanese woman up and down, clearly displeased. "Strobe puts all her trust in you?"  
"Can we just get going? We've got a mission here." SheCat was not happy at all at the snooty woman in uniform who was standing on the driveway. Strobe actually worked with this social moron?  
"Forgive me, but aren't you supposed to be in uniform?" Lexi took a more guarded position, arms crossed. SheCat stood there, in all her T- shirted, denim shorted, ponytailed glory.  
"This is my uniform. Now, as before, let's go."  
"You look like something Xavier scraped off the street."  
"Yeah, like leather and Spandex hybrid is so intensely cool." SheCat snorted.  
Lexi's eye twitched. She was not going to be pushed around by this trash. "At least I have a decent uniform."  
"Dear God, let's just get going. I didn't wake up at one a.m. to be arguing about uniforms with someone like you."  
When Assassin failed to respond, SheCat walked right by her and up the jet ramp. Lexi rolled her eyes and snorted. Irresponsible, irrespective wench.  
Kurt was waiting in one of the bedrooms of the Nightingale, hanging from the ceiling by his tail. When SheCat entered, he neatly flipped down.  
"Liebchen!"  
"Kurt!"  
After a short hug, the two sat down on the bed together. SheCat marveled at how Kurt had barely changed at all. Thinner, yes, after staying in Africa for a while, but still quite the same. Still quiet, gentle, caring Kurt.  
"Why do you guys need me?" SheCat had to ask. Of anyone, why had Assassin called her specifically?  
"Kurt paused a second, then choked on his words as he said them. "Rogue and Gambit have been.captured. Strobe placed her trust in you as a Plan B. Assassin called you because she knew that." He stared at her a second.  
"But they're safe, right? Otherwise you would have called Scott or Jean or Logan, right?" The look in his eyes betrayed his answer before he even said it.  
"Lexi made the call. I vas too weak after that long bamf, and Strobe and Aqua vere involved in something. She knew only of you, not of Jean or Scott or the others. Strobe trusts you, and made it known." His accent faintly flavored dead words. It was as if he was reciting something he had planned to say earlier, but not something he truly felt. "But Strobe didn't want you to come."  
SheCat's answer was cold. Strobe had always thought this of her, never taken even a second to reconsider. "She thinks I'll die." Strobe might have been right.  
They sat in silence for a few seconds, listened to the hum of the engines as Lexi piloted to Nevada. It was a soothing sound, reverberating inside their ribcages and altering the erratic beat of their hearts. They let their eyes close for a few seconds as the whirring, strumming sound moved into their mouths, noses, ears, and wrap them up. Meditation was a calming exercise.  
"Will you?"  
"Die, you mean?" SheCat kept her eyes closed. The longer she had her eyes closed, the longer she could be on a motorbike path among the aspens, wind twisting her hair and rain soaking her skin, collecting on her eyelashes and spilling alongside her tears. The longer she had them closed, the longer she could be anywhere but on this jet, knowing inside Remy was in danger hundreds of miles away.  
"Ja. Will you?" Kurt watched her. He had not seen her for so long. She had grown up; she was no longer a girl. Strange how life changed people from innocent, naïve, happy children to broken shells of former spirit. All her love had been siphoned to everyone else, especially Gambit. There was no love left for herself, no confidence, no self-respect or reverence. She never took the time for herself, just moving from day to day, living for the sake of others. She was hollow.  
"If I have to." Her eyes opened, slightly wetted. She turned to him.  
He ran his fingers across her cheek, and with a pang was reminded of that time in the hallway a long time ago. Different setting, different people, same everything else. "I swear it von't come to that."  
  
The jailors had decided that the Super-bowl had obviously gone to the Packers, and since that wasn't their favorite team, they were hard-pressed for entertainment. Bruce had been displeased by the previous session, so they decided to regain the favoritism and give an particularly brutal extra session. Both prisoners shivered in anticipation as the door opened.  
"You know the drill. On your knees." As the Southern girl refused to do anything but stand, they hit Remy with the club between the shoulders, knocking him to the floor. Rogue, unwilling to be the cause of his pain, kneeled. Their captors bound her wrists and ankles, then Remy's. She staggered out of the cell as quickly as a bound person could as they prodded her in the back.  
"If you weren't muties I might feel sorry for you. Too bad your 'evolutionary advantage' is useless now." One of the soldiers took the metal billy-club and slammed it into Rogue's spine. She crashed down on her stomach. He beat her again, this time against the head, and watched as she bared reddened teeth as a cut on her forehead leaked blood against the cement. The soldier raised the billy-club again.  
"Get away from her!" Remy suddenly lunged, as best he could, at the club-bearing man, but fell short and only crashed to the floor at his feet. The other soldier kicked him as he struggled to get up.  
"Well, well. We see a little spunk in this one. C'mon, boys, let's beat it out of him!" The two other soldiers rammed their clubs into Remy's side, forcing him to lie down. He gasped for breath. Rogue, still lying prone, was helpless to aid him. Metal struck bone and he cried out as his femur splintered. Rogue winced as the meaty thuds of the clubs striking flesh resonated in the room. Another series of blows, and the soldiers backed off a second.  
Gambit lay there, keeping his teeth clenched to prevent the blood and bile from pouring out onto the floor. He could only see through one eye, and the other was hazy, swimming, unable to focus. A small rivulet of red ran down his face; his side felt like it had caved into itself. His chest moved painfully in and out with each breath. Shameful tears ran down his cheeks. He gulped. Rogue tried to move to him, but a soldier placed a foot on her back to keep her down. The initiator looked down his nose at Gambit.  
"Surrender now, mutie?"  
Through his tears, Remy painfully nodded his head.  
  
"Do you know where we're going?" SheCat walked up besides Assassin in the pilot's chair of the cockpit.  
"Don't doubt me, dropout. I know where we're going." Assassin watched the reflection off the face of her watch. SheCat's peeved expression at the name could easily be viewed, even without turning around. After a long an uncomfortable silence, Lexi finally felt the urge to drive the wedge home. "SheCat, eh?"  
"Yeah." SheCat kept her eyes on the radar monitor, watching the sweeper move around and around, detecting nothing.  
"Where'd you get a name like that?" Lexi adjusted her position to see her mental adversary better in her watch's reflection.  
"That'd be none of your business now, would it?"  
"Fine. Where'd you get the scars, then?" Lexi smiled privately to herself. Lexi 1, SheCat 0.  
SheCat bristled. What had started out an uncomfortable dislike was rapidly heading towards full-blown loathing. "You're a sociopath, you know that?" The Japanese lady took the copilot's seat, marveling at the surprising comfort of the chair. Lexi sneered.  
"So are you." Lexi adamantly kept her face to the window, piloting with ease and experience. She needed no copilot.  
"Then I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The statement was more insulting and sarcastic than genuine. Lexi turned away. SheCat had gained the last word. Lexi didn't enjoy that at all. For a second both sat in silence, one reveling in her personal victory, the other privately sulking.  
"Where's Nightcrawler?" Lexi broke the silence. SheCat preferred not to look at her as she answered.  
"He's in back. He feels guilty he left the other two behind, so I figure we should let him rest a bit." Assassin didn't understand why. He had done what he had to. No sense risking his life for something unnecessary. After another somewhat uncomfortable silence, Lexi turned on her comm-link.  
"Assassin to Strobe, we are currently fifteen minutes away from landing."  
"Why'd you leave? We need you here!" The voice went in and out of static, but the angry tone was not lost.  
"Apparently I was under the impression that your friend SheCat might actually be useful to us."  
Strobe's following swear words were mainly lost to static. It sounded as if she was speaking with a mouth of sand. Finally she reverted to a more civil tongue. Over the comm-link the sound of gunshots were heard.  
"Assassin, I told you to always consult me before you do anything! You brought her here? I told you to keep her out of this!"  
"And what? We needed a buffer! Can't you see I did what I thought best?" Lexi had acted with good intention. She could just as easily have left them there and forgotten all about them.  
"Take her back now!" Strobe menacing voice was interrupted by the sound of an explosion. SheCat grabbed Assassin's comm-link.  
"SheCat to Strobe, I'm not going back. You can't make me." Silence on the other end, punctuated by short spurts of static. Assassin and SheCat exchanged looks. Lexi took the comm-link back.  
"Strobe? Strobe, are you there?" Silence for another few seconds, then Katy-Jo's voice broke the tension.  
"SheCat, don't do this. He can take care of himself." The background din had died away. Strobe was soft and gentle.  
"I have to." SheCat had taken the comm-link away from Assassin again. Lexi let SheCat speak, then scrabbled at her hands with her nails to get it back, eventually wrenching it away.  
"Assassin to Strobe, we will arrive in ten minutes. What's your situation?"  
"Firefight, not so bad now. We can't get in yet. We'll wait. Strobe out."  
"Assassin out."  
Lexi clicked off her comm-link.  
  
Remy and Rogue lay huddled up in the corner of their cell. Rogue was anxious, and kept checking on Remy, who had not spoken in hours. They had literally thrown them back into the cell, and they both had to crawl to the trenchcoat, which had been left before the beating. Gambit had slept through the last few hours, Rogue gently checking his pulse sporadically and wiping blood off his face with a strip of her uniform.  
"Oh, Remy, what'd they do to you?" His face twitched a little and he whimpered. The initial adrenalin rush was gone, and the pain came in torrents. Had it not been for Rogue's voice, he'd have likely lost his will to live. "You didn't hafta get in the way."  
Softly, brokenly, as if he was holding back tears, "I know."  
The sound of boots striking floor interrupted them. Rogue's head shot up, white streak flashing in the light of the hall. Remy turned his eyes upwards. The door to the cell opened.  
"Oh God, not again." The soldiers filed in, just like before, and bound them, just like before. They seemed more agitated, though, and less careful in their binding. Rogue's questioning eyes met those of the soldier wrapping her wrists.  
"I wouldn't want to be you, Missy." He hoisted her up to her feet and shoved her out the door, where she promptly toppled to the ground. Remy, leg broken, was unable to stand with feet bound, so Rogue aided him as they were prodded and pushed down the hall. The soldier, now behind her and out of sight, spoke again.  
"Bruce is not in a good mood."  
  
Katy-Jo and Aqua were taking a much deserved rest, kneeling behind a pine tree. The search crew after them would be there soon, and then they'd have to move again, so they savored this small moment of respite. Katy-Jo began strapping, buckling, and hitching metal bracelets to her wrists, nervously fumbling her fingers across their smooth surfaces. Catching her utility belt as it began to slip off her knees and onto the ground, Aqua gave a questioning look.  
"Conductors. They'll focus my power from stun to knockout." The last metal bracelet clashed against her wrist, shimmering in the dim light of dawn. Knockout and maybe even more, she thought. She had yet to kill, or even to experiment with the full extent of her mutation. Electricity was a dangerous creation to toy with.  
The low hum of the Nightingale's twin engines broke the silence. The landing, despite Assassin's practiced attempt, was still clumsy among the trees. Kurt bamfed outside to meet the two as the ramp lowered.  
"Guten Morgen." His voice was more wry than welcoming. "Any new developments?"  
"None. We been too busy running our butts off avoiding some uniformed mooks to try and infiltrate." Strobe disregarded any form of greeting whatsoever.  
"Yeah, and pine needles are the last thing you need when wearing a Spandex suit." Aqua pulled a needle from his thigh, sighing as it left a pockmark in the black fabric.  
"Yeah, well, we now have the element of surprise." SheCat walked down the ramp, preceded by Lexi. Strobe looked once more into familiar hued eyes, a recognized face framed by a ponytail and stray lock of dark hair that had never been cut. It was the last face she wanted to see right now.  
Lexi broke the tension. "Well, a thanks for bringing help would be nice."  
"Assassin, you hijacked the jet, made calls without my permission, picked up my friend against my command and you expect me to be happy?" Strobe rose from her knees to look Lexi in the eye. "I'm the team leader! What I say goes! And I said to take her back home!"  
"I think if a team leader thinks with their heart rather than their head they will do what's worst for all of us, despite good intentions." Alexis Moore didn't even blink.  
"Assassin, if I didn't need you so much I'd have canned you on the spot." Katy-Jo turned away, fuming. She didn't notice as SheCat levitated her sword, held her index fingers to her temples and concentrated, nor did she notice that the sabre was glowing white hot. She did, however, notice that some of the pine needles and broken sticks began skittering across the duff at her feet.  
"SheCat, what are you doing?" Katy-Jo turned to see SheCat, palms open-faced, surrounded by a myriad collection of toothpicks, syringes, nails, pine needles and other various sharp objects. The sword cleaved the air as it returned to SheCat's hand.  
"Getting ready. Now, are we gonna do this or what?" SheCat peeked her head around a tree, followed by her personal collection of random sharp items.  
"SheCat." Strobe let her voice wander away. The other four watched her as they awaited her response. "Fine. Let's go."  
  
Rogue and Gambit were shunted and shoved down the halls of the complex, moved quickly and with great haste. Because Remy couldn't walk well on a broken leg and two shattered ribs, Rogue had to help support him as they went, a task that was quickly wearing her down. It was near the end of the hall that she realized that he suddenly was light, and her wounds were healed. Quickly adjusting her position to avoid skin contact, she focused hyper-keen senses, imprinted from Logan, and tuned in to the halls alongside them.  
"The dampener's down! We don't get it running again those muties could get lose!" Despite heightened hearing, the voices were still faint. "Do you know the damage they can cause?"  
"Hang up.energy is coming back, sixty percent recharged.there's too much electrical interference. Some kind of electric anomaly." A calmer voice, an older one. The other one ranted and raved. This one was more of a scientist. Rogue felt obliged to grin. Good old Strobe.  
"We can't wait half an hour for it to work again! The boss will have our heads!"  
"We'll have to!"  
"How bad is it?"  
"They would currently have full access to their mutations."  
"Sir!" A new voice, younger, more like that of a low-ranking recruit. "We think it will be possible to set their mutation to a less intense level if we use the generator!"  
"How long?"  
"Five minutes to get it going, lessens their mutation to forty percent of its original."  
"Do it."  
Five minutes. They had five minutes to create as much chaos as they could in the confined space and hopefully escape intact. Then, with powers nullified, it would be slaughter for them, the soldiers all having guns. She looked at Remy. Apparently he had noticed his power had returned as his eyes began to glow a vivid crimson. The slightest nod from her head, a twitch of his sparking fingers against the bindings, and mayhem unleashed itself, in all its horrible glory, inside that cement hall.  
  
"Aqua and I'll stick together. Kurt, Assassin and SheCat, your job is finding the other two. Aqua and I'll try to reach the control room. Until then, all cyborgs consider you fair game, so be careful. On the count of three, Kurt takes me and Aqua in and returns for the other two. Ready?" Slow nods from everyone. Strobe took a deep breath in her counting. "One.two.three. Now." Kurt wrapped himself around her and Aqua, then disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke. Assassin sniffed a little as the smell of sulfur perforated the air. SheCat paid it no heed, waiting patiently until Kurt returned and gave her and Lexi what reminded her of a hug.  
The jaunt itself was not as unpleasant as the landing. Kurt, trained by years of practice, never even felt the vertigo settle in. It happened to fast for most people to even notice the sudden flip-flopping of their stomachs. Still, on occasion, someone would not recover fast enough and be left nauseous or even vomiting. Since his early years of bamfing it had always been an embarrassing part of his actions that many people found the trip quite unpleasant.  
They landed, however, in a sprawl. Kurt's slight miscalculation left them a foot above ground, bringing their ankles to a very hard awakening. Strobe and Aqua waited for them. Strobe whispered as quietly as she could while still being audible.  
"Best of luck to you. If anything goes wrong, use the comm-links. Be careful." And with that she and Aqua disappeared into the shadows of the hall, carefully using a form of spray to high-light tripwire detectors. Kurt gave an unseen nod and started in the opposite direction, followed by the two women. He moved like a shadow, dark fur blending perfectly with the shadows. The window did not supply the sunlight to light up the room. They reached a door, Lexi sprayed something on it, and they entered once it was assured the handle was safe. Kurt's pointy-eared head peered around the door.  
The room was made of cement, like everything else in the building. The sunlight came from a small window and illuminated the grey surface of the right wall. The rest was fairly dark. Lexi dared to use a flashlight across the floor.  
Shining silver against the light, three metal billy-clubs rested against the wall. A few telltale spatters of blood on the ground stated that this was a room of torture. Assassin ran her hands over the stained floor.  
"They were here. Both of them. There's small amounts of blood, cut leather bindings, a scrap of red uniform over here." Her trained eye caught every minute detail. "Their cell would be this door, and they recently left, by the trail of dirt and blood, from this door."  
Silent nods from the rest. Kurt followed the door Lexi had indicated, and found himself in a hall of some kind. The two ladies filed out after him, and Lexi switched off her light, leaving them in an unlit, windowless room. From the darkness, a distant scream was heard.  
  
In the manner of time it had taken the soldiers to react, all the bindings had been cut and Gambit and Rogue were creating a good deal of chaos in the hallway. The first few soldiers fell to Rogue's massive strength, and the series behind them taken out by the charged remnants of the leather bindings. Realizing that close quarters would benefit them more than long-range, the two used the walls to their advantage, Rogue using it as a weapon as she smashed heads and bodies against it, Gambit using it as cover as he used any small object he could lay his hands on to rain pain and energy upon his foes. The soldiers attempted to back off to get a good shot, but it was more than difficult in their confined surroundings.  
Two minutes in, neither had tired. Gambit grabbed a dog-tag from a soldier's neck, charged until it glowed with fierce violet energy, then flung it, watching as it wreaked havoc upon on side of the hall. Rogue used her ability of flight to throw comrades onto each other, playing a crude game of human bowling. Three minutes. Gambit grabbed a soldiers gun, fired twice, then charged it and threw as hard as he could. Even broken and bloodied, he was not beaten yet. Neither was Rogue. Using her strength inherited from Carol Danvers, her feet lashed out and cracked skulls against cement. The wall itself was breaking as all manner of objects slammed into it. It was all or nothing, and neither of them held back. Four minutes.  
Their sudden drop in power came so fast that Rogue nearly fell from the ceiling, slowing herself only with the remnants of Ms. Marvel's power. As she caught herself, she allowed herself as a target, if only for a second. It was a second too much. Ten guns fired almost simultaneously.  
The slugs of ammunition pounded through her chest, going in neat circles and exiting horribly maimed holes. She dropped.  
For Remy, it moved in incredibly slow motion. For some perverse reason, they didn't fire at him, not as he rushed to her side and lifted her from the ground, not as he felt her go limp in his arms.  
Her eyes rolled up to meet his. Her mouth started to form words, but only a bubble of blood came out. Logan's healing factor would never be enough to heal this kind of damage. Again, she attempted speech.  
"Remy.?" She tried to focus. She couldn't see him. Strange, how at her point of death the one thing she wanted was denied from her. Unfair, if anything.  
"Rogue." It was within that one word that all the emotions that could be contained in any speech or any soliloquy were presented. He held her tight, feeling her broken body suddenly heavy in his arms. She didn't respond. Then, instinct took over, and he grabbed her and kissed.  
If she could use his life force to benefit herself, it would all be worth it. If her life meant giving her all of his, he would do it. But she was not going to die here, not now, not if he could do anything to stop it. Even at forty percent of her original power, skin to skin contact would be enough to siphon all his strength off. But Remy wouldn't go unconscious first. At forty percent, he would be awake for the whole thing.  
It started instantly, the second their lips touched, while she was dying but not yet dead. The first sense was overwhelming pain. Every nerve screamed and twisted in agony as his flesh met hers. Her eyes opened a second, unseen to him, glowing red and black like some visual parody of Hell. He felt the blood rising in both their mouths, touching and bubbling and spilling between the smallest crevice of their lips. His eyes closed, now going pale, at the same time as all of her conscious thought shut down.  
`Oh God I'm gonna lose her. I can't hold on anymore. But the truth was, he couldn't let go. Whether by his force of will or by the activation of her powers, he couldn't let go. He couldn't even move as they collapsed, still locked, and hit the floor. He had no healing factor, his life force wouldn't be enough to sustain her. The blood started to migrate in his veins towards his lips, and for a second he felt like giggling as every pleasure center in his brain caught fire and erased logical reasoning. Then that wave passed too, and left him feeling pain yet again. Please, if you can hear my t'oughts as dey come to you.could she hear him? Did it matter what he thought anymore anyway? If it did matter, if that was what she would have of him, then he wanted it to be what he wanted to say. It was magic, chere. Just like magic. C'mon, girl, pull through. Don' die on me. You aint goin' out dis easy. If his life revitalized her, then at least he would live forever in her soul. If she died, she would become nothing more than a memory.  
At that point cognizant thought became impossible as bloodlines ruptured, as arteries started to burst and veins bleed out. This was the final stand. The damage was done. Either way, whether she lived or died, his fate was sealed. Blood started to pour from his nose, his ears, his eyes --what kind of internal damage had been done to make him bleed from his eyes?--like some satanic form of tears mingling with his real ones. Skin lost color and touch died right there. He could have been stabbed and never even felt it. In almost all senses, he was already dead, and so was she. He was losing her. His last connected thought came clearly, despite all his bodily functions ceasing to exist, as his soul departed alongside hers.  
I love you.  
  
SheCat took off at a sprint, until Kurt grabbed her shoulder and restrained her.  
"Nothing subtle about you, is there?" Lexi started creeping along the wall, bow and arrow ready for action. The other two followed, though Kurt kept having to hold SheCat back. Quite plainly she was nervous Remy and Rogue were in danger. And quite plainly she didn't understand why the others didn't want to run to them either. However, her habit was to throw safety to the wind, and that was not something the rest of the team was prepared to do.  
"That might've been them! Why don't we go help them?!" She struggled to pass Nightcrawler again, who restrained her with his tail. After a brief try at wrenching it off from around her waist, she fell back against the wall in slight resignation, holding her sabre ready.  
"Ve don't know it vas them." Kurt melded into the wall shadows. The sound of footsteps caught his attention. SheCat tried to move forward again.  
"Shhh! Someone's there." Kurt held a hand over SheCat's mouth to prevent her answering. Lexi peered down the hall.  
"No, Nightcrawler, not someone. Something." A stunted form was moving down the hall, followed by two others, similar to the first. The single glowing eye on each and the slight clicks of metal every time they put down their right feet gave their identity away. So these were the infamous cyborgs.  
"Not for long." SheCat's voice was colder, more calculated even than Assassin's. Lifting a palm, the sword levitated, then shot like an arrow from a bow directly through the first cyborg. Before an alarm was even sounded, the second had been dispatched as well. The third was just quick enough to send out a series of sharp blips before a series of nails and medical syringes pounded straight through its torso. "I think that was the alarm!"  
All three took off running, down the hall and as fast as they could. Kurt grabbed Lexi and bamfed to the end of the hall, then bamfed back to SheCat and grabbed her. His bamfing felt weaker, however, as if he was operating at less than half of his potential. Likewise, at her full extent, SheCat could have obliterated all three cyborgs simultaneously. But at forty percent, it was too late for that.  
"Left! Go left!" SheCat barked an order as the came to a three-way fork. Go towards where they had heard the scream. If they found help, that was useful. If not, they'd be further wedged between a rock and a tight space.  
"Well now that they know where we're headed!" Alexis sprinted at full speed left, placing a bare hand on her arrow. Her power, derived of instantaneous canceling of the electrons in an object that allowed it to phase through the first object it hit, was taking longer to activate. Frustrated, she tried another arrow, also in vain. An entire dictionary of profane words seemed to roll off her lips as she tried yet another arrow. Nothing.  
In a similar fashion, the series of sharp items following SheCat dropped almost instantly, clattering with the clicks and clangs of wood and metal against the cement. The sword hovered a second longer than the rest, then crashed down too. SheCat dropped to her knees and grabbed it and a handful of toothpicks, ignoring the blood now running from her hand, and sprinted after Kurt, who was in a similar state of confusion as a puff or purple smoke left him standing in exactly the same place as he was before. Lexi turned an about face to see them.  
"They've switched off our power!" Lexi waited for them at another fork, catching her breath on her tongue as she panted.  
"No duh, Sherlock, now let's keep going! Straight! Go straight!" A bullet tore into the wall next to SheCat's head. A hefty amount of curses escaped her mouth as she ducked into the shadows. Kurt's fur let him meld into the shade, and he used it to his advantage as he dropped to all fours and ran headlong straight, following Assassin.  
"Fork!" Lexi called out again to warn them, then gave a sharp cry as a tranquilizer ripped into her side. She twisted a bit as she fell, then twitched as she hit the floor.  
"Grab her!" SheCat had adjusted to the leadership mode very quickly. Kurt grabbed Lexi. SheCat lowered her voice as much as she could while still being audible. "Go right. I'll take left. Bottom line, no matter what happens to me, get out of here and to the jet, take care of her, and call Strobe." With that, she shoved him to the right, making sure that he stayed in shadows. He turned to her as if to protest. She lifted her sword to his throat.  
"Don't make me hurt you." With that, she shoulder-checked him right again and started running left, crying out as if she'd been hit. "Aaugh! My leg! I've been shot!" Kurt didn't miss the wink she gave him. He took the limp form of Lexi in his arms and started to creep down the hallway on the right, mentally figuring the easiest way out of there.  
SheCat staggered a few steps, then leaned against a wall and clutched her leg as she was surrounded by armed soldiers. A few of them started speculating; she didn't look injured. She heard one in particular.  
"Wait! She's not hit!"  
"Too bad for you, moron." With that she sprung at them, using her skill in fencing and martial arts to plow through the first two before taking a dart to the neck. Her sword impaled one more before the dart took its paralyzing effect. Lying prone on the ground, the only intense part of her was her eyes, shining green and gold and burning the viewers with utter hatred.  
"Well then, I bet you came for the other two. Funny, you don't look like a part of their team. What are they again, the X-Men? You don't look like one." The soldier standing over her looked down at her helpless body. Strange, if he could have given her a name at the moment he would have had her some type of wildcat. He could not know that he would have been invariably correct. "Do you like to lose?"  
She didn't answer. He continued.  
"If you let those eyes of your roam a little down the hall, you'll see what I mean." She did.  
It wasn't as if her world crashed down around her ears. It was more that it ceased to exist as the world was bathed in darkness, as it went mute, as it softened out. She could have been dead had it not been for the rising and falling of her chest, still panting from the running. Anyone watching her eyes would have said that they had lost all pigment, all shine. It was as if her soul had died right then and there, at the sight of the person she loved most lying dead.  
"It hurts, don't it? I had a loved one once too, until you mutie freaks took her away. You took my Loraine away." He ripped her face away from his and watched as her head cracked against the floor. He stood up and gave his orders. "Take her to a cell, give her food and water and bring her to me for her beatings. Clean up that mess down the hall, but keep the prisoners' bodies. There's more than one way to break a person."  
  
Strobe and Aqua had reached the room past the cyborg barracks unharmed when their powers had been negated. Both took it as a hindrance, but nothing more. Strobe had the odd feeling something was amiss, something she should have done lay untouched. Nibbling her nails as she decided which door to take, she was irritating Aqua. However, he bore his annoyance silently.  
"Ah, I think this door, if I remember the map correctly." Her voice, despite being no more than a whisper, echoed in the hall. At that moment her comm-link blipped.  
"Nightcrawler to Strobe, Assassin and I are outside ze building. She's been hit with some kind of paralyzing dart. We're at the Nightingale now."  
"And where's SheCat?" Strobe was getting nervous. She should have gone with her, tried to hold back her friend's impulses and emotional instincts.  
"I don't know. She forced us to leave without her." Kurt's voice seemed a bit sad, as if he should have taken her place as decoy.  
"Thank you, Nightcrawler. Strobe out."  
"Nightcrawler out." Both links clicked off. Aqua gave Katy-Jo a questioning look.  
"What now?" Strobe looked back at him, filled with hindsight. But the team had to persevere, no matter what. She'd gotten them into a mess, now it was her duty to get them out.  
"We find the control room. We shut it down. We get back to the Nightingale. Either SheCat finds Rogue and Gambit and frees them, or she doesn't. If she does, we all go home safe. If not, we wait as long as we can. Until it's obvious if they aren't coming back."  
  
They had thrown her in a cell. Literally, thrown her. She didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. There was no purpose to her very existence anymore.  
Of course there's a purpose. She sat in the corner, rubbing and fingering her flower pendant again and again, as if it could give her solace. As if Yuriko could tell her what to do, where to go, what happened next. As if Yuriko could talk to her only daughter through the use of a mica and abalone pendant.  
There were no tears shed. Tears were petty things, they were overused, they were of no significance anymore. Tears would make heartache the equivalent of murder.  
She knew two things. The first, the love of her life was gone for good. The second? She didn't want to live in a world devoid of the joy she was given from his very presence.  
You can die now, dear. It's okay. Pale green eyes turned to the window. The sun had risen. It burned her eyes, blinded them, even when she couldn't care less anyway. She was blind already, deaf too. Every sense had failed her, just like she had always failed the team. Bait once, now a liability. Unable to help when her loved one needed her.  
Shhh, dear. It's okay now. You'll be fine. Don't think such horrible things. You got Kurt and Lexi out, didn't you? And at least that's something.  
What does it really matter? Remy's dead. I couldn't help him.  
It was out of your hands, dear. You can't blame yourself. Who was she talking to? Was someone talking to her? A telepath, perhaps? Someone else? Or was it all in her head?  
It had always been all in her head. Any notion he had loved her back, any display she took as affection, any thought that she could actually help anyone. Yes, he might have enjoyed her presence, he might have protected her, but he always had looked after her like a daughter or sister. His real love had been for Rogue.  
Rogue. Rogue had had everything SheCat had ever wanted. Rogue had always had Remy.  
Come to think of it, Remy was the only thing SheCat had ever wanted.  
Rogue had gotten to die in his arms, hear his last words, feel his last motion, his last thought. She'd gotten to have everything from him a pair of doomed lovers could ever need. She'd had every chance, every opportunity SheCat had never had. But SheCat had one thing Rogue didn't have.  
SheCat had a chance for revenge.  
That's it, dear. Just like that. You can die now.  
I'm already dead.  
Shhhh.  
  
"Oh God, it was the wrong hallway." Katy-Jo had had a sudden recollection. She had gone down the way. They were one the wrong side of the complex.  
"Well, things just keep going from bad to worse, don't they?" Aqua peeked around a corner to ensure that no one was lying in wait for them, realizing it was futile unless the enemy was deaf.  
"Okay, we head for the other side. If we find the dampener all the better, 'cause we can blast it. I guess we're on our own." Strobe walked around the corner. Aqua followed at a more tentative pace, careful to make sure his footsteps made no noise. Strobe glared at him.  
"Stop it, it's not like we could be in any worse trouble." She was impatient, snappy, and above all, putting herself and others in danger when she knew she should be doing otherwise. Aqua grabbed her arm.  
"Katherine Joanne Joplen, in all my years knowing you I never knew you to be careless." Their eyes met, and their unspoken bond touched them both again. She answered, softly.  
"Right. Okay, we'll try this way. And Aqua?" He let go of her arm. "Your footsteps are too loud. Be more stealthy, like this." He suppressed a smile as they continued down the hall, now almost silent.  
Around five minutes later, they found the dampener, used some mismatched fighting skills to dispatch of the guards, and used a mixture of brute force and mechanical know-how to disable it. Once her power was returned, Strobe proceeded to drain all the electricity in each room unto herself and store it. She flicked a spark between her fingers as Aqua bound and gagged the unconscious guards.  
"Looking up, Aqua?" She leaned casually against the wall as he used duct tape to seal a handkerchief in the mouth of a guard.  
"We could've been master spies, Katy-Jo." He shot her a smile that should have been on a toothpaste ad. "Amazing how quickly our luck turned."  
Her smile faded. "We still have the control room to do. And we have to find the others." Their happiness was indeed short-lived. With a sharp pang both recalled that the others were not having it so easy as them. Aqua stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder.  
"You're doing fine. We'll get 'em back." Her hand clasped his. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that her plan had been perfect, that she was a good leader.  
"I'm just worried, that's all." She couldn't force her eyes to meet his.  
"So am I. But we'll get through this."  
"Promise?" Her one moment of weakness was unseen by any but him. So long she had kept up the pretense of a fearless leader, of a perfect role model that sometimes she forgot what it was like to be wrong.  
"I promise."  
She took his hand from her shoulder and turned to face the hallway, letting the electricity she felt inside run through her veins. "Let's go."  
  
Arnold Lewis had often questioned what he was doing at S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd never liked mutants, but he didn't hate them either. Many times he'd secretly fed the prisoners when his comrades were not looking. He knew, unlike his teammates, that mutants too could feel pain and love and emotion.  
So why had he taken the job? Easy. It was a way to pay the rent for his three kids and wife at home.  
And yet, whenever he saw something so ultimately human coming from one of his victims, he never slept. He knew he'd be re-playing the scene of the white-streaked woman's and red-eyed man's death for weeks. It would keep him every night, and he would wonder why there even was a difference between the mutants and the humans.  
He had seen some of the most inhumane treatment towards the captives. The General planned on using the body of the red-eyed man to torture the new captive, the Japanese girl. Lewis was appalled. Yes, the General had his reasons, but even then, why was that girl going to be punished so, just for trying to help someone?  
When he was little, his father had told him stories of the Nazis in World War II. Even the people who weren't Jewish were killed, he said, just because they felt it would be unethical not to step in and help. Lewis often wondered if he was being ethical, standing aside as people as human as he was were killed and maimed when he could step in and help them.  
Unfortunately, "human" is filled with faults, and as much anger and rage as love and hope can be unleashed from the human soul. It was the last lesson Lewis ever learned.  
SheCat stood alone in the room where the soldiers had tried to take her to her first torture session. The soldiers' blood wetted buck knives hovered in the air around her. Lewis, jugular cut, lay at her feet. Her pale eyes looked out the open door. The buck knives followed her.  
Before anyone could even raise the alarm, they were dead. No one saw or heard her coming until it was too late for them. As more sharp objects accumulated in her aura, she walked in a kind of diabolic serenity down each hall, killing everything that moved. She slaughtered the men playing Go Fish and drinking coffee, she decimated the technicians watching Gary the Rat and Stripper Ella on the control panels.  
She wasn't SheCat anymore. She wasn't Yuriko, either. She was nobody of importance.  
Leaving a wake of destruction behind as she scoured the entire complex, she never felt a thing. No pain, no guilt, no anger, no grief. She couldn't feel anything at all. There was nothing left to feel. She was a berserker. She was a walking dead person.  
Strange how easily one could tip the hand of fate. She had had hope, hope that Remy would someday love her, hope that someday she would do something right, hope that she would someday get over him. Now those last rays of hope had been crushed by the will of S.H.I.E.L.D., covered up by the clouds of brutality and fear. Clouds that had left their mark as pale eyes, as blood all over the floor, as a trail of destruction that followed a broken heart.  
Hell hath no fury like a lover denied.  
Strange how a young woman, slightly depressed, had metamorphosed into a blood-thirsty killer. She walked differently as well, with a perfected stalk instead of a slight shuffle. Her face betrayed no emotion; her actions were only to control the myriad sharp objects that followed her.  
A trickle of blood ran from the mouth of a guard into his NEW DADDY mug. A technician, shock still frozen on her heavily make-upped face, would never return to the lover portrayed in her gold locket. A custodian was lying on the floor, his bare chest revealing the name STACY tattooed into his flesh, along side the thin cuts that ran in one side of his body and out the other. All were her prey. The full wrath of SheCat, daughter of Lady Deathstrike, had been unveiled.  
  
"I think this is it." Strobe ran her hands over the panel in front of her, sensing the routes of the electricity moving throughout the entire building. "Yeah, this is it." They'd reached the control room.  
"Why isn't anybody here?" Aqua checked around the panel. "Oh."  
A body lay there in a puddle of blood. Aqua cringed and shrunk away from it. Strobe looked on in interest.  
"Who did this?" Strobe checked around. No signs of a struggle, only the shocked face of the victim and a slit across their neck. Strobe investigated closer, wrinkling her nose at the smell of blood and the fly that currently went in and out of the victim's ear.  
As if on cue, SheCat walked up into the doorway. Aqua backed up against the panel, making sure his hand was on the switch that would transfer energy to the dampener. His own power was useless for this situation. Strobe moved forward towards her friend, but stopped halfway across the room as she saw SheCat's eyes.  
"Oh my God, SheCat, what happened to you? What did they do to you?" The blank face followed Strobe's action as she backed up next to Aqua. Something struggled in the back of the berserker's mind, some tie. She couldn't kill these two. They were important, in some way, somehow, they were important.  
But killer instinct overrode all rational thought.  
Fast as lighting her hand whipped out, and with equal speed the series of blades and shards of glass flew forward to meet their targets. Strobe screamed, but Aqua moved as fast as SheCat did, flicking the switch the instant her hand started to move. The weapons stopped a few inches short of each of their necks and fell. SheCat didn't respond.  
"Oh my God." Katy-Jo was in a state of shock. She had never seen anyone this possessed, this broken. And she had an idea exactly what they had done to make her this way.  
Aqua shrunk back under the glare of the woman. Her eye twitched. Aqua dared to move his hand off the dampener switch.  
It was the opportunity SheCat was waiting for.  
She launched herself like a rocket at him, using her own body weight as a tool to slam him against the panel and pin him there. He tried to push her off, but she had acquired some type of unholy strength. Quietly, in a perfected manner, she placed her hands on the side of his head, ready to twist for the killing blow.  
For Strobe, it should have been an easy decision. A berserk killer or her lover. But it wasn't an easy decision. It was the hardest one of her life, and no matter which choice she made, she'd regret it for the rest of her mortal life.  
That berserk killer had once been her friend.  
"I'm sorry."  
With those words, Katherine Joanne Joplen cut the dampener's energy and raised her hand.  
  
* * *  
  
Strobe dropped her hand. Tears began running down her face, over her perfect lower lashes and down her cheeks. The blonde hair that had previously been a luxury now fell awkwardly, amounting to even more accent her mood. She gave a small sob.  
"Katy-Jo? Is she.did you.?"  
"It's over." Strobe shut her eyes to all their human extent, trying to stem her crying in vain. She turned away from him.  
Aqua pushed the body off him, feeling the tad of static electricity spark against his uniform. Standing up, he watched as the girl who could never be broken broke down into weeping. He walked over to comfort her.  
"Katy-Jo? Katy-Jo? Let's go home." Still unable to look at him, she nodded. He took her by the shoulder and started walking out of the building. She stopped halfway out of the room.  
"I don't want to be an X-Man anymore." As childish as that statement was, she meant it. She never wanted to have to use her control over electricity, to have to send friends to their death, to have to make choices like that ever again.  
"C'mon, let's just go home." He started walking her away again. She complied.  
The sun was at high noon when they made it outside.  
  
SheCat was swimming in some kind of murky water, too dark to see through. There seemed to be no gravity, as she floated up and down in the darkness. She could feel her hair swirling around her face, feel the water entering her nose as she tried to breath. Struggling madly to reach some kind of surface, some slight respite from the ache in her lungs, she mentally cried out across the astral plane.  
Hey! This isn't the way it was before! Again she thrashed in the water for oxygen, then slowly stopped. She was already dead. It didn't matter if she drown now or not.  
What had happened? She remembered a cell, thinking to herself that she should die then and there, then the rest was hazy. Except the last scene had been, just for a second, crystal clear. Strobe softly whispering words and raising one hand while the other flicked a switch, and then blinding pain. Had Strobe killed her? Her little Strobey? Was that even possible?  
From that moment on, SheCat could feel again. Every emotion that had previously been denied from her rushed in a torrent to consume her entire being. Grief, hate, fear, fury, all ran incognizant, one right after the other, beating her skull in with a type of mental breakdown that began to destroy here. She writhed and twisted, spread-eagled, fetal position, folded, any possible contortion as she screamed aloud, as if movement could acupuncture her feelings.  
After a while that seemed like an eternity, she stopped, still unable to breathe in the dark liquid surrounding her. It was over. Wherever she was going now, she would go. It didn't matter to her.  
A bright flash of light in the back of her eyes forced her to look upwards. There, as if a seem was splitting through black fabric, was a slit, now filled with blinding light. An arm came down to her, with gloves with half the fingers chopped off as it grabbed her wrist. For the first time in her life she felt the deepest peace anyone could feel as it pulled her up into the light.  
I told you dat I'd be back soon, mon chere, an' it looks like I kept my word.  
When she reached the surface, she found herself looking at a familiar smirk, familiar auburn hair that fell just over familiar eyes, a familiar laugh that she loved so much. SheCat was finally home. 


End file.
